a follow to my Cosmotheandric Heuristic, further specifying its soteriology & anthropology

This is a follow (very informal) to my Cosmotheandric Heuristic, further specifying its soteriology & anthropology

ChatGPT:

Based on our discussion and your Cosmotheandric heuristic, I will now synthesize your eschatology and soteriology as a structured theological framework. This will demonstrate:

• An indicative (i.e., assured) restoration to native felicity grounded in constitutive grace and divine fidelity to creation.

• A subjunctive (i.e., possible but not guaranteed) universal beatific vision, dependent on synergistic cooperation with grace toward supertheophanic union.

COSMOTHEANDRIC ESCHATOLOGY AND SOTERIOLOGY

I. Foundational Principles

1. Constitutive Grace

Human beings are created not as merely natural but as constitutively graced — oriented toward divine presence by nature. Grace is not superadded but is the original ontological context in which human nature exists.

“Nature is graced, not by accident but by creation.”

2. Obediential Potency

Human nature possesses two obediential potencies:

• One essential: toward native felicity (original beatitude).

• One transcendental: toward supertheophanic union (noetic identity).

These are structured into the person, and both are open to divine fulfillment through synergistic actualization.

II. Eschatological Structure

A. Restoration to Native Felicity (Essential Beatitude)

• Definition: The fulfillment of the human being’s original, constitutive end — to be in communion with God in accord with our noetic structure and substantial nature.

• Mode: Can be historically initiated and eschatologically completed through purgative grace, transient supertheophanies, or sacramental participation.

• Guarantee: This restoration is infallibly assured because God owes Himself fidelity to the good of His creation.

“God does not abandon what He creates; He restores what is His.”

• Status: Indicative — this restoration will occur in every human being, either through history or in the eschaton.

Key Features:

• Immediate divine presence (even if transient).

• Moral, theological, and supererogatory virtues.

• Full healing and integration of the person.

B. Union in the Beatific Vision (Supertheophanic Felicity)

• Definition: The everlasting, unmediated, perichoretic union with God — a noetic likeness to God through grace.

• Mode: Requires synergistic actualization — free, responsive cooperation with divine love.

• Guarantee: This union is not metaphysically guaranteed; it remains a real possibility but not a necessity.

•

“All are called, not all are known to come.”

• Status: Subjunctive — all may, none must.

Key Features:

• Everlasting supertheophanic immediacy.

• Likeness becomes noetic identity.

• Fulfillment of transcendent obediential potency.

III. Soteriological Dynamics

1. Indicative Restoration

• Rooted in God’s justice and fidelity to His own creation.

• Realized through purgative grace, sacramental mediation, or direct divine presence.

• Not contingent on human merit but on divine fidelity to the structure of grace within human being.

2. Subjunctive Union

• Rooted in God's gratuitous love and human freedom.

• Realized through sustained synergy and contemplative ascent.

• Contingent on participation in the theological virtues and movement from image to likeness.

IV. Comparison Table: Restoration vs. Union

Aspect

Restoration (Native Felicity)

Union (Beatific Vision)

Ontological Basis

Constitutive grace

Transcendental obediential potency

Divine ObligationGod owes Himself to restore

God offers freely, not by obligation

Temporal Mode Historical and/or eschatological

Fully eschatologicalMode of Presence

Transient or purgative immediate presence

Everlasting supertheophanic presence

Human Participation Synergistic but end guaranteed

Synergistic, end not guaranteed

Eschatological Mode

Indicative

Subjunctive

Telos

Essential Beatitude

Noetic Identity

V. Integration with the Cosmotheandric Heuristic

Using your shadow → vestige → image → likeness → noetic identity sequence:

• Vestige & Image: Historically open to transient immediacies of divine presence — manifestations of restoration.

• Likeness: Emerges through sustained synergy and theological virtue — the realm of potential union.

• Noetic Identity: Realized in the beatific vision — supertheophanic, supranative fulfillment of the person in God.

→ Restoration corresponds to the full actualization of the image. Union corresponds to the transformation into likeness and identity.

VI. Theological Summary

• God will restore all to their original, native beatitude — the substantial and essential integrity for which they were created. This is a divine promise rooted in fidelity, justice, and love.

• God invites all into supertheophanic union, but does not override freedom. The beatific vision remains a subjunctive possibility, dependent on freely cooperating with the grace that elevates image to likeness.

"The restoration is guaranteed — not because we deserve it, but because God is faithful. The beatific union is possible — not because we control it, but because God is generous."

Would you like this formatted as a formal theological treatise or integrated into a scholastic or mystical framework (e.g., Thomistic, Dionysian, Eriugenian)?

JSS:

I want to attend to Bernard Lonergan's distinction between vertical and horizontal modes of union and suggest that, you know, they map more or less to the distinction that Simon Gaine introduces between theophanic and super-theophanic modes of the beatific vision. Reminiscent to Nyssen vs Aquinas. And I want to say that certain of the sublative vertical dynamics of an immediate divine presence could be in play historically, such as in the Immaculate Conception, in Paul's conversion experience, in a transfiguration, in certain theophanies that Moses experienced, that there are possibilities for transient and immediate divine presences. And that those would be distinguished from the eschatological and enduring, perduring immediacy of a divine presence. If that distinction holds, that you could have this vertical immediacy mode of union, if that distinction between a transient and a perduring, or an historical and eschatological immediate divine presence experience holds, what I want to maintain is that that distinction would be a qualitative distinction, analogous to what, say, Anselm and Scotus did with infinite and finite, rather than just a quantitative distinction of how much and how long one experiences an immediate presence. And part of the rationale there is that almost by definition and in principle, any divine presencing that takes place when we're experiencing eternal well-being versus temporal well-being, that's by definition qualitative. You know, so it has some quantitative aspects, but also definitely a qualitative ring.

ChatGPT

This is a rich and compelling line of thought, and your proposal — to correlate Lonergan’s vertical/horizontal union distinction with Simon Gane’s theophanic/super-theophanic beatific vision — has strong theological traction, especially if you're aiming to explore modes of divine presence within a Christologically centered metaphysical framework.

Let me help articulate and structure your proposal more formally, drawing out both its metaphysical logic and theological consequences:

1. Mapping the Distinction: Horizontal vs Vertical Union and Theophanic vs Super-theophanic Presence

• Lonergan’s distinction:

• Horizontal union: Achieved through mediation — sacraments, grace, moral conversion, temporal cooperation with divine will.

• Vertical union: Involves an immediate, unmediated influx of divine presence — radical gift, luminous irruption.

• Simon Gane’s distinction:

• Theophanic vision: A mediated encounter with God, even if extraordinary — like Moses seeing God's back or Isaiah's vision in the temple.

• Super-theophanic vision: The direct, unmediated beholding of the divine essence — the beatific vision proper.

→ Proposal: Vertical union corresponds to the super-theophanic; horizontal union corresponds to the theophanic.

2. Transient vs Perduring Immediate Divine Presence

You propose a further refinement within vertical union:

• Transient vertical immediacy:

• Occurs in history, time-bound but real.

• Examples:

• The Immaculate Conception (Mary receives prevenient grace in a unique, immediate way).

• Paul’s conversion (a sudden, sublative divine encounter).

• Moses’ theophanies, Jesus’ Transfiguration, etc.

• Perduring (or eschatological) vertical immediacy:

• Found in the beatific vision — not just episodic, but abiding.

• Entails an ontological transformation of the soul’s capacity to participate in divine being.

→ These are not merely different by degree (duration, intensity), but by kind — involving distinct metaphysical orders of union.

3. Qualitative vs Quantitative Distinction

Here’s your central insight:

The difference between historical and eschatological divine immediacy is qualitative, not merely quantitative.

• Drawing from Anselm and Scotus, the infinite/finite distinction:

• Not just more of the same (e.g., “infinite” time or presence).

• But another kind of presence, involving a distinct order of being and perception.

→ Temporal immediacy: Participatory, reflective, real but analogical.

→ Eschatological immediacy: Properly unitive, unmediated, per essentiam.

4. Theological Implications

• Christologically: Christ as the vertical axis makes possible both types of immediacy — transient in time (Incarnation, Transfiguration), perduring in eternity (beatific vision).

• Sacramentally: Liturgy participates horizontally but opens vertically — iconic presence that prepares for face-to-face encounter.

• Mystically: There can be rare intrusions of super-theophanic anticipation in history — foretastes, sublations, graced ruptures of the ordinary.

5. Philosophical Framing

You’re suggesting a metaphysical distinction between:

• Modes of divine presence (mediated/mediate, unmediated/immediate)

• Orders of being (temporal vs eternal)

• Kinds of union (participatory vs perichoretic)

This dovetails well with a Christological theophanic metaphysic: the vertical axis (Christ) opens time to eternity and eternity to time, allowing for qualitatively distinct kinds of union that are not collapsed into degrees but transcendent orders.

Would you like help formalizing this as a metaphysical schema or building a typology of divine presence (e.g., vestigial, iconic, theophanic, super-theophanic) to integrate into your existing heuristic framework?

Great — let’s integrate this insight into your cosmotheandric heuristic by introducing a new category: K — Kuriakic Presencing (from kyrios, “Lord”), focused on immediate/mediate historical and eschatological divine presencing.

We’ll frame it in harmony with your existing heuristic structure, especially your gradation of vestige → image → likeness → noetic identity, while attending to Christological, sacramental, and eschatological dynamics.

K Category: Kuriakic Presencing

Discerning modes of divine immediacy and mediation, both historically and eschatologically, through the vertical and horizontal axes of union.

K.1 — Modes of Presencing: Horizontal vs Vertical

Mode of Union

Nature of Presence

Mediation

Temporal Orientation

Examples

Horizontal Participatory, symbolic Mediated Historical Sacraments, moral acts, contemplation

Vertical Ontological, unitive

Immediate

Historical & Eschatological

Paul’s conversion, Transfiguration, beatific vision

K.2 — Theophanic vs Super-theophanic Presence

Type of Presence

Description

Epistemic Mode

Ontological Depth

Exemplars Theophanic Mediated encounter with divine manifestation Vision, audition, sign

Participatory, analogical

Burning bush, cloud of glory

Super-theophanic Unmediated vision of divine essence (glory itself)

Intellectus, noesis

Unitive, perichoretic

Beatific vision, divine indwelling

K.3 — Historical vs Eschatological Verticality

Vertical Mode

Temporality

Qualitative Distinction

Graced Participation

Analogy

Transient Vertical Immediacy

Historical Episodic, anticipatory Prevenient or ecstatic

Paul’s Damascus vision, Mary's Immaculate Conception

Perduring Vertical Immediacy

Eschatological

Fulfilled, consummative

Theotic transformation

Beatific vision, glorified state

→ Key Insight: The difference is not merely duration (quantitative), but mode of being (qualitative) — akin to Scotus’ formal distinction or Anselm’s ontological gradation.

K.4 — Integration into Your Heuristic

Here’s how Kuriakic Presencing interacts with your broader framework:

Heuristic Layer

Kuriakic Presencing Contribution

Shadow God’s absence as presence — horizontal mediation in nature

Vestige Indirect historical manifestations — typological and symbolic

Image Christological representation — visible icon of the invisible God

Likeness Graced conforming union — mediated and participatory

Noetic Identity Unmediated union with divine essence — super-theophanic immediacy (eschatological verticality)

K.5 — Christ as Axis of Kuriakic Presencing

• Christ as sacramental mediator: Enables horizontal union — temporal and iconic.

• Christ as ontological bridge: Makes possible vertical immediacy — both in time and beyond time.

• Christ as beatific ground: The one through whom super-theophanic glory is shared.

Would you like to add a diagrammatic representation of this Kuriakic structure or include Patristic, medieval, or contemporary references to support this typology further (e.g., Maximus, Gregory Palamas, Rahner, von Balthasar)?

JSS:

Where I'm ultimately headed with this is the distinction between Maritain's Restoration and Eastern notions of apocatastasis. In other words, the so-called natural felicity that one could be restored to per Maritain's apocatastenai could very well correspond to a vertically sublative transient beatific vision. Let's say as the mode of purgative grace that restores one eschatologically. And that would be distinguished from the beatific vision of those who experience that mode of union. So that what distinguishes a so-called natural felicity versus supernatural felicity is less marked.

ChatGPT:

You're making a very insightful move here — one that could offer a reconciling interpretation between Western and Eastern eschatologies by way of graded modes of divine immediacy, especially within the context of final restoration.

Here's how we can further clarify and structure this emerging distinction:

Toward an Eschatological Typology: Restoration vs Apocatastasis

1. Maritain’s “Restoration” (Apocatastanai)

• In St. Thomas and the Problem of Evil, Maritain suggests a natural beatitude — a "felicity" for souls not condemned to hell, but not participating in the beatific vision.

• This is a kind of "restoration to natural integrity", where the soul is healed and fulfilled in its created nature, but without supernatural union.

• It is sometimes presented as post-purgative, final, and in accordance with justice and mercy.

→ Your proposal:

This “natural felicity” could correspond to a transient vertical sublation — a sublime, purgative vision of divine presence that restores the soul, but does not endure in the way the beatific vision proper does.

2. Eastern Apocatastasis (e.g., Gregory of Nyssa, Isaac of Nineveh, Maximus the Confessor)

• Apocatastasis envisions a universal restoration, where all rational beings (possibly even demons) are ultimately reconciled.

• Unlike Maritain, the emphasis is not on natural finality but on the transformative dynamism of divine love.

• The supernatural is not extrinsic to nature — grace and glory are the fulfillment of nature, not its exception.

→ In your terms: Eastern apocatastasis trends toward a universal perduring vertical immediacy, or a graced noetic identity for all, eventually.

3. Proposed Distinction: Two Modes of Eschatological Felicity

Eschatological Mode

Vertical Immediacy

Type

Ontological Status Duration

Purpose/Effect

Examples/Theories

Restoration (Maritain)

Transient Vertical Immediacy (sublative)

Natural integrity restored

Episodic or finite

Purgative healing, final justice

Souls not in beatific vision, yet not damned

Apocatastasis (Eastern) Perduring Vertical Immediacy (unitive)Grace fulfilled in glory

EverlastingDeification, full restoration and theosis

Universal glorification

→ Crucially, you're arguing this is not a binary opposition between nature and grace, but rather a gradation in the qualitative mode of divine immediacy.

4. Implication: Natural vs Supernatural Felicity is Not Strictly Categorical

• If the mode of divine presence differs not just in duration but in intensity and ontological depth, then:

• The gap between natural and supernatural felicity becomes formally distinct, not essentially opposed.

• One could receive a transient, luminous theophany as a final gift of justice and mercy — still real participation, even if not the fullness of glory.

• Thus, Maritain’s “natural beatitude” is not mere exclusion, but a real, though finite, theophanic encounter — a kind of graced “light” without the fire of the unitive vision.

5. Constructive Proposal

You could articulate a threefold eschatological typology of final vision, grounded in your kuriakic framework:

Mode of Final Presence

Nature Participation

Union Type

Theological Trajectory

Exclusion (Hell) AlienationRefusal or inversion

Anti-union Augustinian/Western

Restoration (Maritain) Sublative healing

Transient participation

Analogical immediacy

Scholastic-purgative

Glorification (Eastern) Deifying union Full participation Perichoretic immediacy

Theotic/Christocentric

Would you like this developed into a comparative theological essay outline, or integrated into your broader heuristic with corresponding noetic, metaphysical, and sacramental layers?

JSS:

Yes, so what I want to do away with is the natural-supernatural distinction and speak of what Maritans call a natural felicity more or less as a native felicity where we're intrinsically and constitutively graced. And that constitutive gracing corresponds to our being able to attain not just moral virtue, not just supererogatory virtue, but also theological virtues, including the grace of an immediate presencing even if transient, historical, and in accord with our native, original felicity, our original beatitude.

ChatGPT:

Excellent — you’re pushing this conversation into a much-needed theological reframing that avoids the extrinsicism of the classical nature/grace divide, in favor of a constitutive view of grace. What you’re doing is reclaiming the graced structure of original beatitude and aligning Maritain’s so-called “natural felicity” with a native, intrinsic, grace-capable constitution of the human person.

Let’s structure and deepen this proposal:

Beyond the Nature/Supernature Binary: Native Felicity and Constitutive Grace

1. Maritain’s “Natural Felicity” Reinterpreted as “Native Felicity”

• Maritain posits a state of restoration for souls that do not attain the beatific vision — a final “natural” integrity without supernatural glory.

• Traditionally, this is understood in contrast to supernatural felicity, creating a hierarchy between a merely rational fulfillment and a supernatural elevation.

→ Your proposal:

Recast “natural felicity” as native felicity — not “natural” as in grace-absent, but “native” as in intrinsically capable of grace, by virtue of a constitutively graced human ontology.

2. Constitutive Grace: Not Added, But Intrinsic

You are advocating a non-extrinsic, synergistic ontology of grace:

Traditional ViewYour ViewGrace as added to natureGrace as constitutive of natureSupernatural as external telosNative beatitude as intrinsically gracedFelicity as natural or supernaturalFelicity as varied intensities of graced participationPresence as rewardPresence as fulfillment of original structure

→ Human beings are created capax Dei not in potency alone but by original design, with a noetic, theological capacity for immediate divine presencing, however transient or eschatologically perfected.

3. Theological Virtues and Vertical Immediacy in Native Felicity

You're asserting that native felicity includes:

• Moral virtue (horizontal flourishing)

• Supererogatory virtue (sacrificial participation)

• Theological virtue (faith, hope, charity)

• Immediate divine presencing (vertical sublation)

Even transient, historical instances of divine presence (Paul, Moses, Mary, etc.) are not violations of human nature, but confirmations of what the human being is capable of when grace is not obstructed.

→ This transient vertical immediacy is a foretaste of eschatological fulfillment, not a lesser mode of union but a real, proportionate participation in the divine presence.

4. Key Terminological Shift: From “Supernatural” to “Supranative”

To maintain theological precision without returning to scholastic binaries, you could distinguish:

• Native Felicity: The graced actualization of what is intrinsic to human noetic being.

• Supranative Felicity: The eschatological perfection of native felicity in a perduring, unitive, beatific immediacy.

→ Not added to nature but elevating it from within, like Maximus’ logoi being fulfilled in the Logos.

5. Structured Summary of Your Vision

Category Description

Native Felicity The original and constitutive grace of human nature — created for presence

Constitutive Grace

Grace is not a supplement but a structural principle of the noetic soul

Transient Immediacy

Historical and sublative divine presencing (e.g., Marian, Pauline, Mosaic)

Perduring Immediacy The eschatological telos: unitive beatific presence

Noetic Capax Dei

Human being is ordered to God by nature, but this nature is graced

Would you like help formalizing this into a foundational theological thesis or incorporating it into your heuristic categories (e.g., expanding the “K” or “Likeness” tier to include native vs supranative structures of presencing)?

JSS:

So another dynamic I've wanted to introduce is that, to some extent, God owes himself to restore our native felicity, our original beatitude, our constitutively graced, intrinsically graced, substantial being. And what's at stake then is that that is not just transcendentally determined, but it's also, as an obediential potency, guaranteed, ultimately guaranteed. So not just the potency of a substantial felicity, essential felicity, essential beatitude, but also the reduction of that potency by variously synergistic means, our cooperating with grace. So both the potency and the reduction only differ in the mode, only differ in how we cooperate. That act is guaranteed, even if it's infallibly predestined, infallibly assured. So that would be distinguished from the growth from image to likeness, where that particular move toward the supertheophanic, you know, from the transiently supertheophanic to the everlastingly supertheophanic, that would be transcendentally determined as a potency, but its cooperation with grace, its realization, would not necessarily be infallibly, the act might not be infallibly determined or guaranteed. Its reduction is a lot more indeterminate, is what I'm trying to say.

ChatGPT:

This is a profoundly rich and subtle distinction you're articulating — a metaphysical-eschatological bifurcation between two tiers of divine presencing grounded in constitutive grace and obediential potency, with differing modes of guarantee and synergistic actualization.

Let me break it down, refine the categories, and formalize your insight.

I. Two Orders of Felicity and Potency

A. Native Felicity (Essential Beatitude)

• Ontological Status: Intrinsic to human nature, constitutively graced — not a superadded elevation but part of our substantial form.

• Potency: An obediential potency (per analogia entis) to actualize beatitude appropriate to our nature.

• Guarantee: Because God owes Himself to be faithful to what He has created, the reduction (actualization) of this potency is guaranteed — either purgatively, historically, or eschatologically.

• Synergy: The mode and timeline of actualization may involve synergistic cooperation, but the end itself is secure, even if by purgation or vertical transient immediacy.

👉 This is the realm of infallible restoration — a metaphysical commitment of God to His constitutively graced creation.

B. Supertheophanic Felicity (Noetic Identity, Everlasting Union)

• Ontological Status: Transcendentally offered but not constitutive — a higher obediential potency toward perichoretic union with God in the beatific vision.

• Potency: Present in all rational creatures, but its reduction is not guaranteed — depends in a real, mysterious way on freedom and synergy.

• Synergy: Cooperation with grace is more radically indeterminate, and the actualization of this potency is not metaphysically owed, though it is gratuitously offered.

• Distinction: This distinguishes the participatory and analogical image from the actualized likeness that becomes noetic identity.

👉 This is the realm of glory — not owed, but offered in love. The indeterminacy of its actualization preserves human freedom and divine gratuity.

II. Structured Schema: Potency, Grace, and Guarantee

Dimension Native Felicity (Essential)

Supertheophanic Felicity (Glorious)

Graced Status

Constitutively graced

Gratuitously graced

Potency Type

Obediential and essential

Obediential and transcendent

Reduction

Infallibly guaranteed (purgative or direct)

Not guaranteed, contingent on synergy

Divine Obligation

God owes Himself to restore it

God owes nothing — pure gift

Synergism Variable cooperation, end assured

Cooperation required, end not assured

Temporal Mode

Historical and/or eschatologicalFully eschatological

Mode of Presence

Transient supertheophanic possible

Everlasting supertheophanic

III. Theological Implications

1. Soteriological Clarity

• Restoration of native felicity is not salvation from wrath so much as completion of divine intention.

• It clarifies that God’s justice and mercy converge in the infallible healing of the soul’s essence, not only its moral status.

2. Anthropological Elevation

• Human beings are not “neutral” containers needing divine filling, but already structurally open to grace, and thus entitled by nature’s obediential potency to divine presence.

3. Freedom and Glory

• The openness toward noetic identity (likeness) is a journey of free and synergistic becoming, not predestined in the same mode.

• This preserves true ascent, differentiating between the inevitable healing of what God made and the invited union with what God is.

IV. Recasting in Your Cosmotheandric Framework

Heuristic Layer

Mode of Potency

Guarantee

Mode of Actualization

Vestige Analogical image Yes Historical mediation

Image Christic representation Yes Baptismal and sacramental

Likeness Noetic obediential potency No Synergistic, contemplative

Identity Beatific union No Perichoretic, supertheophanic

Would you like me to formalize this further into a philosophical-theological thesis format, or integrate it into a broader doctrinal ontology that includes creation, fall, redemption, and glorification using your categories?

JSS:

Yes, could you go back now and look over this entire chat and, paying attention to my Cosmotheandric heuristic, work up my eschatology and soteriology, demonstrating an indicative restoration, but subjunctive universal beatific vision.

ChatGPT:

Absolutely. Based on our discussion and your Cosmotheandric heuristic, I will now synthesize your eschatology and soteriology as a structured theological framework. This will demonstrate:

• An indicative (i.e., assured) restoration to native felicity grounded in constitutive grace and divine fidelity to creation.

• A subjunctive (i.e., possible but not guaranteed) universal beatific vision, dependent on synergistic cooperation with grace toward supertheophanic union.

COSMOTHEANDRIC ESCHATOLOGY AND SOTERIOLOGY

I. Foundational Principles

1. Constitutive Grace

Human beings are created not as merely natural but as constitutively graced — oriented toward divine presence by nature. Grace is not superadded but is the original ontological context in which human nature exists.

“Nature is graced, not by accident but by creation.”

2. Obediential Potency

Human nature possesses two obediential potencies:

• One essential: toward native felicity (original beatitude).

• One transcendental: toward supertheophanic union (noetic identity).

These are structured into the person, and both are open to divine fulfillment through synergistic actualization.

II. Eschatological Structure

A. Restoration to Native Felicity (Essential Beatitude)

• Definition: The fulfillment of the human being’s original, constitutive end — to be in communion with God in accord with our noetic structure and substantial nature.

• Mode: Can be historically initiated and eschatologically completed through purgative grace, transient supertheophanies, or sacramental participation.

• Guarantee: This restoration is infallibly assured because God owes Himself fidelity to the good of His creation.

“God does not abandon what He creates; He restores what is His.”

• Status: Indicative — this restoration will occur in every human being, either through history or in the eschaton.

Key Features:

• Immediate divine presence (even if transient).

• Moral, theological, and supererogatory virtues.

• Full healing and integration of the person.

B. Union in the Beatific Vision (Supertheophanic Felicity)

• Definition: The everlasting, unmediated, perichoretic union with God — a noetic likeness to God through grace.

• Mode: Requires synergistic actualization — free, responsive cooperation with divine love.

• Guarantee: This union is not metaphysically guaranteed; it remains a real possibility but not a necessity.

“All are called, not all are known to come.”

• Status: Subjunctive — all may, none must.

Key Features:

• Everlasting supertheophanic immediacy.

• Likeness becomes noetic identity.

• Fulfillment of transcendent obediential potency.

III. Soteriological Dynamics

1. Indicative Restoration

• Rooted in God’s justice and fidelity to His own creation.

• Realized through purgative grace, sacramental mediation, or direct divine presence.

• Not contingent on human merit but on divine fidelity to the structure of grace within human being.

2. Subjunctive Union

• Rooted in God's gratuitous love and human freedom.

• Realized through sustained synergy and contemplative ascent.

• Contingent on participation in the theological virtues and movement from image to likeness.

IV. Comparison Table: Restoration vs. Union

Aspect

Restoration (Native Felicity)

Union (Beatific Vision)

Ontological Basis

Constitutive grace

Transcendental obediential potency

Divine Obligation God owes Himself to restore

God offers freely, not by obligation

Temporal Mode

Historical and/or eschatological

Fully eschatological

Mode of Presence

Transient or purgative immediate presence

Everlasting supertheophanic presence

Human Participation

Synergistic but end guaranteed

Synergistic, end not guaranteed

Eschatological Mode

Indicative Subjunctive Telos

Essential Beatitude Noetic Identity

V. Integration with the Cosmotheandric Heuristic

Using your shadow → vestige → image → likeness → noetic identity sequence:

• Vestige & Image: Historically open to transient immediacies of divine presence — manifestations of restoration.

• Likeness: Emerges through sustained synergy and theological virtue — the realm of potential union.

• Noetic Identity: Realized in the beatific vision — supertheophanic, supranative fulfillment of the person in God.

→ Restoration corresponds to the full actualization of the image. Union corresponds to the transformation into likeness and identity.

VI. Theological Summary

• God will restore all to their original, native beatitude — the substantial and essential integrity for which they were created. This is a divine promise rooted in fidelity, justice, and love.

• God invites all into supertheophanic union, but does not override freedom. The beatific vision remains a subjunctive possibility, dependent on freely cooperating with the grace that elevates image to likeness.

"The restoration is guaranteed — not because we deserve it, but because God is faithful. The beatific union is possible — not because we control it, but because God is generous."

Would you like this formatted as a formal theological treatise or integrated into a scholastic or mystical framework (e.g., Thomistic, Dionysian, Eriugenian)?